I have just received a catalogue through the post which has been published in hardback. It looked wierd, until I realised I have on my bookshelves another hardback catalogue. It’s obviously not a new idea. The current one full of glossy squeaky pages and bright colours is poles apart from this one which I found at a boot fair a few years ago.

Dog hair, on carpets and clothes, mingled with the dust on shelves and finding the odd one in the butter!

Pulling a loose thread on a blouse, then a button drops off.

A light bulb popping. They only ever do this when you have no spares and it is always in a place which cannot do without light so you have to borrow one from somewhere else.

Pilling on fairly new jumpers. No wonder it was such a bargain!

You’ve just sat down with a lovely meal and drink on your lap ready to change to the programme you planned to enjoy with your dinner and you can’t find the remote control.

Noticing your new tights are laddered just as you enter an interview or arrive at a party.

Stubbing your toe.

Losing your keys when late for an important appointment or date and realising you only ever seem to lose them when late for an important appointment or date.

The underwiring in bras sliding out of place.

The smoke alarm starts to blip its low battery warning at 3am.

Telephone marketing calls.

Dirty bar of soap in the bathroom.

Lukewarm tea.

Your newspaper that someone’s read first.

Charity shop collection sacks that you fill, and nobody collects.

The sound of children squabbling, waking you at 6am.

The sound of children snoring after you’ve woken them for school yet again, at 8.30am.

An unpleasant smell that proves difficult to track down.

A bluebottle.

Inexplicably bent cutlery

I had a random phone call asking if I would deliver and collect envelopes for a charity collection. As it was a one-off, I agreed without thinking it through.

Had I done so I probably would have refused, but sent a donation myself, instead.

Delivering and collecting envelopes is worse than tin rattling outside supermarkets. I have never done this but rarely put money in when others do it because I object to being pressurised. I might change my mind now. At least there they are doing it on neutral territory.

Posting an envelope through someones door and then doing a follow up call is far more pushy than rattling a tin on the high street, and I had to nerve myself for each knock, literally and metaphorically!

Most people had shoved the envelope on the side to deal with at some point.  So they had to scrabble around for money to put in it,  or look a skinflint by returning an empty envelope.

My admiration of the person who did return it empty and said no thank you, was tempered with thoughts of ‘mean git.’

When I am nervous I can talk for England. Someone asks me a question and I just babble an answer and carry on. In fact often I am so nervous I do not answer the question because I have not heard it and so I am babbling on some wierd tangent of my own. For some reason (probably because I know I’m being stupid) my babble is interespersed with loud laughter. Nobody knows what I mean but they all laugh back, encouraging me to babble further.

Those that phone at the most inconvenient times will always have this. They start to tell you something, veer off at the first fork in the conversation to tell you something, connected with the first something, veer again at an extremely fascinating thought connected to the second something, veer again as they remember something about the original something which is also connected to something that is not connected to any of the original somethings but which leads to further fascinating somethings.

Why do these people always phone when you are unwinding, cooking (and now burning) a lovely meal, eating (and now gulping down) a wonderful dinner, bathing, or sleeping. Why are they always sensitive types so you can’t just be honest and get rid of them but have to pretend you are absolutely riveted by them and their conversation …blah blah.

I have a tendency to worry which,worries me, especially as Chloe has inherited the same tendency and worries about everything.

She does her homework and worries about marks she may get or getting it in on time. If we go shopping she worries beforehand the we might not find anything that suits her. When we’ve found the perfect garment she worries that her friends may not like it or that I might shrink it in the wash. Meanwhile I also worry that I might shrink it or accidentally dye it in the wash.

I worry that she is a worrier and there is nothing I can do to help her. She worries that she worries me and tries not to worry, or at least to tell me about it.

The extra worry in having someone you love worrying is exhausting!

I’ve dried washing on radiators, clothes horses in front of gas and log fires, strung up on a line in the kitchen or bathroom, in driers at the launderette, and in one I owned when I had a larger kitchen.

Hanging them out on a washing line in town makes them smell of petrol or diesel; they are more likely to be cleaner and fresher if dried and freshened indoors.

The best way to dry clothes is hanging them on a washing line to blow in the wind, provided you live in the country or the sea where the scents of flowers, herbs and grass, or the salty sea can waft through them, making them smell sweeter than any fabric conditioner.